Authors: Wendy Corsi Staub
Too bad John didn’t advise us to do just that last night,
she thinks, remembering how much time her cousin had spent here, talking with Lou about the plans he was going to draw up for the new room.
While the two of them walked around the house, taking measurements upstairs and down, and talking about possibilities for other improvements, Michelle had busied herself ironing sheets—something she has never done before in her life. She was just desperate for something to do, other than talk about the house.
“I’ll start working on the plans right away, okay, guys?” John had promised when he left, carrying a plastic bag filled with chocolate chip cookies Michelle had given him to bring to Ashley and Jason.
“You don’t have to rush,” Michelle had told him. “There’s plenty of time.”
“But Lou said you want to get started on the room as soon as possible, with the baby on the way.”
“
Lou
wants to get started on the room. I’m not so certain it’s a good idea,” she’d said, not bothering to keep her voice down. Who cared if Lou, reading Ozzie his bedtime story in the living room, heard her?
And he obviously had. The moment she’d closed the door and walked back into the living room, Lou had asked what was wrong with her. “I knew you thought this house needed a lot of work, but I didn’t realize you thought it was a lost cause,” he’d said, setting Ozzie on the floor with his book and focusing his attention on Michelle. “What’s changed your mind?”
What was she supposed to say to that?
It’s just a bad feeling I’m getting around here lately
.
And some weird things that have happened
.
Like vanishing food
.
And now I’m really starting to think the place is haunted,
she thinks, spraying more Tilex onto the stained wall above the tub and scrubbing furiously.
She can just hear Lou echoing her, sarcasm dripping.
Haunted? Yeah, sure, Michelle
.
Maybe if she tells him what Ozzie said tonight, as she was taking him out of the bathtub . . .
No.
That won’t prove anything to Lou, other than that his pregnant wife has a grossly overactive imagination and it’s probably rubbing off on their poor, innocent little boy.
“So what? So he said he’s afraid to go to bed because of the lady in his room? I told you not to paint that gigantic mural on his wall. That life-sized Old Mother Hubbard is probably giving him nightmares.”
That was exactly what Michelle had thought, when Ozzie had first mentioned the lady in his room—that he was referring to the picture of a bespectacled white-haired woman in an old-fashioned dress, holding a bone for her dog.
The only trouble was, when she’d brought Ozzie into the room after drying him off, and told him to show her the lady, he said he couldn’t.
“She not here, Mommy,” he said, looking around, his eyes wide with trepidation.
“Are you sure? Look at the wall above your crib . . . is she there?”
He’d glanced at the nursery rhyme characters, shaking his head. “Nope, not there.”
“Then where is she, Ozzie?” Michelle had asked.
He couldn’t tell her. He only shook his head, whimpering, then started screaming “No!” when she’d put him into his crib, even after she’d promised him she’d stay right upstairs here with him until he fell asleep
.
Finally, the screaming had stopped, but still, Michelle is keeping busy in the bathroom, her ears strained toward the hallway, in case Ozzie should wake up again and need her.
Meanwhile, Lou isn’t yet home, and it’s got to be well after nine. Darkness fell a while ago.
Where is he? she wonders, then realizes she might rather not know.
If Lou really is having an affair, or up to some other secretive activity, she can’t handle it right now. Not with the baby in breech position, and Ozzie’s mysterious lady, and everything else that’s been going on lately.
She draws in a sharp breath as a contraction comes out of nowhere, painfully tightening her abdomen and causing her to double over.
It lasts at least thirty seconds, then passes.
Just more Braxton-Hicks, like Dr. Kabir said,
she reassures herself. Funny. She just doesn’t remember these early contractions starting so early in the pregnancy, or being this strong, with Ozzie.
Oh, well. Every pregnancy is different.
She’d better get used to this false labor.
After all, she still has more than a month to go before the real thing.
G
rayson’s Cove, North Carolina, is a small fishing village not far south of Roanoke Island, located on the Pamlico Sound separating the mainland from Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
At the airport, Barrett rented a car and made the long drive from Raleigh, arriving in the early evening, when the sun was still shimmering brightly on the vast stretch of dark-blue, whitecap-tipped water.
He had almost been expecting one of those built-up tourist towns that have sprung up along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida, but this is one place that seems to have escaped commercialization. The businesses along the main street are somewhat run down and strictly functional—banks, a grocery, a lunch counter, several Laundromats. No pricey boutiques or fancy cafes here, nor charming inns. Rory would probably be hard-pressed to find an espresso in these parts, he thinks with a smirk.
Barrett quickly finds a room at the only hotel in town—a motel, really; a somewhat dilapidated two-story structure with a long, outside balcony running the length of the place and affording the advertised water view—
if
you stand on one of the peeling metal chairs and crane your neck to see above the golden arches of the fast food restaurant on the next block.
After dumping his small bag on the sagging queen-sized bed and changing into shorts and a lightweight T-shirt, Barrett quickly makes his way back to the main drag, which is fairly deserted for this hour on a pleasant summer evening. Deciding to eat before anything else, Barrett eschews MacDonald’s in favor of the luncheonette, which is, luckily, still open, and hopefully the kind of place where a newcomer can strike up a conversation with one of the locals bound to be sitting along the counter.
As soon as he walks in, Barrett sees that he made a good choice.
The few booths along the windows are empty, but the counter is occupied by several likely prospects. He surveys them, wondering who will be the most forthcoming and the least suspicious if he asks a few casual but probing questions
.
The white-haired man in the slouchy fisherman’s cap chatting the bored-looking counterman’s ear off?
The friendly-looking black lady with the magazine propped open in front of her bowl of hominy grits?
The redneck type in the dirty T-shirt and Tarheels cap, munching on a sandwich and staring moodily into space?
The redneck, he decides, walking toward the empty stool beside the man.
The fisherman, though he’s obviously the chatty type, has an empty glass of ice and a plate dotted with crumbs in front of him, which means he’ll probably be leaving soon, since even Barrett knows that fishermen rise before the sun.
Meanwhile, the lady looks pleasantly absorbed in her magazine, and might not take kindly to being interrupted by questions from a stranger about the locals
.
No, the redneck is a better bet. And if he doesn’t give anything away, Barrett will try the counterman next, as soon as the fisherman leaves.
He sits and glances at the white specials board, with a couple of inscrutable phrases jotted in marker. He’s starved, not having eaten since Mrs. Shilling’s scrambled eggs and blackberry muffins early this morning, and a small bag of honey-roasted peanuts on the plane. Even the stale-looking glazed doughnuts under a rounded glass lid down at the end of the counter are making his mouth water.
“What’ll you have?” the man stops mopping the counter to ask, interrupting the fisherman’s nonstop conversation, which is apparently about someone named Maisie who recently had a gallbladder operation.
What Barrett really wants is a seltzer with a twist of lime, but this is no longer New York. He orders a Coke and asks for a menu. The vinyl cover is smeared with ketchup, and sticky, and the list contains your basic diner fare—BLTs, tuna salad—with the kind of heavy, down-home, full-fat-and-cholesterol cooking you only find in the South. Chicken-fried steak with cream gravy, collard greens simmered with bacon, pecan pie.
He sets the menu aside after glancing it over and noting the incredibly cheap prices, then turns to the redneck and says, “Excuse me, but I’m not from around here. Can you tell me what’s good?”
“Everything’s good,” the man says, sounding mildly surprised, his eyes flitting over Barrett, but not in an overly curious way. “Sausage gravy. Corn bread. Hush puppies. Fried chicken. You name it.”
“I’ll try the buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy,” he tells the counterman, who plunks his beverage down on the counter with a wrapped straw.
The redneck orders a cup of coffee and a slice of butterscotch pie with extra whipped cream. He’s going to stay put for a little while. Good.
“My name’s Barrett,” he says.
“First, or last?”
“First,” he tells him, offering his hand to the man, knowing the friendly gesture won’t seem out of place or arouse the least bit of suspicion. Not here in the South, where the rental car agent offered him a stick of gum and the motel desk clerk called him
hon
.
“Jed,” the redneck says, shaking hands. His are grubby.
Barrett does his best not to wince, and fights the urge to wipe his fingers on his napkin.
“Nice little town,” he says instead, tilting his head toward the smudged plate-glass window, with its view of Main Street, and, beyond, the harbor dotted with sailboats. “I’ve never been here before.”
“Yeah, it’s all right. I just moved here myself, ’bout six months ago.”
Barrett’s spirits sink. He was hoping to talk to a native; someone who might be able to answer his questions. Still, you never know.
“What brings you to a little town like this?” he asks conversationally.
“Construction job. I’m workin’ on repairs to the bridge across the inlet over there,” he says, motioning toward the window, as Barrett did. He adds, stumbling a bit over the big words, “It’s for one of them historical preservation things. That there’s the oldest working drawbridge in the state of North Carolina,” he adds proudly, as though he’s personally responsible for restoring it.
“Interesting,” Barrett comments, sipping his Coke and wondering how to change the subject. He decides just to come right out and ask, waiting until the counterman slaps a steaming, heaping plate of buttermilk biscuits and creamy white sausage gravy in front of him.
“I’m hoping to find a cousin of mine,” he says to the redneck, as he picks up his fork and cuts off a small piece of sopping biscuit. He hopes the word
cousin
didn’t come out too forced, making it sound like an obvious lie.
“Yeah? You mean, in these parts?”
He nods. “I did some searching over the Internet and found out he was living in this town.” At least that part is true.
“Well, like I said, I’m new here. But Grayson’s Cove’s a tiny place. You don’t have to be born and raised here to get to know everyone in town pretty damn fast. Who’re you lookin’ for?”
“His name’s Anghardt. Russell Anghardt. Lived here for years, then moved away for a while, and came back about ten years ago. Ever heard of him?”
“W
here were you yesterday?” is Molly’s greeting when Rory walks into the kitchen Wednesday morning.
And for just a moment—an inexplicable, precarious moment—Rory considers telling her the truth. For some reason, after a sleepless night and an acute uneasiness over coming face-to-face with Emily’s brother, she needs to share the burden.
But not with Molly.
“I went down to Poughkeepsie to see a friend,” she hedges, walking to the cupboard and taking out a box of Cap’n Crunch. She adds, truthfully, “And after that, I stopped in Albany to go shopping.”
What she doesn’t mention is that she’d wandered around the shopping mall for a few hours, trying to lose herself in something she had once found to be one of life’s ultimate pleasures. She’d tried on a few outfits in a department-store dressing room, and found herself thinking of Barrett, wondering if she’d see a flicker of appreciation in his eyes if he saw her in the knee-skimming, pale-yellow halter sundress that complements her coloring. She hadn’t bought it, had decided she wasn’t going to buy anything—not if Barrett Maitland was going to be her subconscious inspiration.
Instead, she’d wandered into the Gap, and Express, and the Limited, and she’d looked at the hip, young clothes, and she’d tried to find something for Molly. Something that would look cute on her, and lift her spirits after everything that’s happened. After all, she seemed to dress in mainly cut-off jeans and Kevin’s cast off T-shirts.